My Immortal
by Mocking Verse
Summary: Alternate ending to 'Arena' based off the song 'My Immortal' by Evanescence. No spoilers for the rest of 'Arena'. Cato/OC


**So this is an alternate ending to "Arena"! ALTERNATE MY FRIENDS! Not the real ending, I just wanted to do a fic with this song. 'My Immortal' by Evanescence. Hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games or 'My Immortal'.**

* * *

_I'm so tired of being here  
suppressed by all my childish fears_

* * *

It's been forty nine hours and seventeen minutes since Cato Harrison's heart stopped beating. Forty nine hours, sixteen minutes, and fifty five seconds since the cannon signaling his death was fired and echoed throughout the arena. Forty eight hours, thirty two minutes, and seven seconds since Cain Halve avenged his death and became Victor of the Seventy Fourth Hunger Games. The eighteen year old girl went insane when she saw his face projected into the sky during the night.

She had immediately starting to scream and sob, making a sound so bone chilling, so inhuman, that many viewers had to block their ears. Her heart had shattered into what felt like hundreds of pieces, her sense of life, her reason for living, gone. Her rock, her lover, her Cato. Gone. Dead. It had only taken a few seconds for the uncontrollable sobs to rack her body, tears streaming down her face as her sanity and composure cracked and broke.

Ten minutes later, she was up and sprinting through the arena, screaming for Peeta Mellark to show his face, to come out and let her kill him. And she had planned a very long and painful death for the blonde boy. She would get both kills for the tributes of Twelve. The little girl having met her end by Cain's knife being plunged into her throat only two days earlier.

Fifteen minutes later, she found him. His body still shaking from the shock of having killed another human being. He was crouched down in front of the creek, a knife still wet with Cato's blood, clutched in his hand.

"You'll rot in hell." She snarled at the blonde boy as she approached him, his head shot up quickly. Then he was on his feet, just in time before she tackled him to the ground, his leg giving out beneath him as she landed on top of him.

Peeta swung wildly around with his knife before she drove her foot into his wrist, pinning it to the ground. She had drawn her knife and run the serrated edge slowly across Peeta's face, starting from the end of his mouth on the left side, up and diagonally across his nose, across his eye and up into his hairline. She only smirked as he screamed in pain, the movement of his face only causing him more pain. "He was _everything _to me!" she cried at him, a tear rolling down her face as she cut the boy just under his chin. She felt his other hand come up and try to grab her from behind, but she just turned quickly, stabbing him between where his wrist connects with his hand and he let out another shrill scream of pain.

Finally Cain plunged the knife into his throat, the trumpets blared. Peeta Mellark was dead. And she was the lone Victor.

* * *

_And if you have to leave  
I wish that you would just leave  
Your presence still lingers here  
And it won't leave me alone  
_

* * *

Cain walks stoically up and through the hallway of the Academy towards the apartment that she shared with Cato for the past six years of her life. Everywhere she looks she is hit by a memory of her now dead partner. She attempts to get an image of him out of her head by glancing down an empty hallway, and for a second, she is certain that she just saw a thirteen year old Cato, beating her in a race down that hallway to the training room. She's even tempting to run down the hallway and check. But she doesn't.

She reaches the door to their apartment and enters quickly, slamming it shut behind herself. Their apartment is _exactly _how they left it that morning only two months earlier. She glances around. His training shoes are still by the door, just thrown there carelessly. _He never would just slip them off. _She thinks to herself. She takes careful steps into the apartment, and then her mind tricks her.

She sees him, lounged out carelessly on the couch, just as he was two months ago. His hair tousled and arm slung over the back.

"Cato!" she cries happily and races over to him. The figment of her imagination smiles at her, biting his bottom lip softly as he always did.

"Hey asshole." He chuckles softly and she smiles for the first time in weeks.

"Cato." She reaches out for him, but he just disappears. Not having even really been there at all. A blanket still spread out on the couch from him tossing it there after they didn't need it on their bed anymore. She snatches the blanket and brings it to her face. It still smells like him. And she clings to it as she begins to sob again.

* * *

_These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase_

* * *

Three months. That's how long it's been since his death. And Cain still doesn't know what to do with her life. Brutus has made it his job to check up on her three times a day. Twice he's walked in on her trying to kill herself. Five times a week he ends up having to hold her back while she screams at the Cato that her mind conjures up. She screams that he needs to come back, she screams that she can't live like this anymore, she screams that he promised he wouldn't leave her.

It's plain to see that the boy's death has just caused too much pain and heartbreak on the girl. She doesn't know how to function without him there.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me

"You need to let it go Cain!" Brutus finally screams at his Victor one day when he comes in to her house, her screams echoing throughout Victor's Village as she was going through one of her daily meltdowns. He walked in to a now familiar scene. Cain crouched on the floor, her hands tangled in fists in her hair, elbows drawn in to her chest as she just screams her throat raw. "Let him go! He's dead! There's nothing you can do about that!" He's surprised when her head snaps up and she glares at him, her eyes glazed over with tears that he's surprised she still has.

"You don't know!" she yells at him, her voice hoarse and dry, cracking on every word. "I had him with me, he was always there! You didn't wipe his tears away when he cried! You didn't protect him whenever he screamed! It wasn't his hand you've held onto for the past six years! I'm dead already! I died with him and now I'm just stuck in this hell!" her voice is too weak to hold up the screaming and her voice just dies down to a loud, hoarse, choked up whisper. "My heart's with Cato! And Cato's gone! So don't you dare tell me what to do, because you have no _idea _how much it hurts!"

* * *

_You used to captivate me  
By your resonating light  
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind  
Your face it haunts  
My once pleasant dreams  
Your voice it chased away  
All the sanity in me_

* * *

He's in all of her dreams. He's always been in her dreams. Kept away the nightmares. But now, he is the nightmare. Because he's always there, and she can never get to him. She wakes up in the middle of the night and just clutches her bed sheets closer. She has no one to comfort her anymore, no one to soothe her, to tell her that it's okay. Because even if someone told her it was okay, she knows their lying. It's not okay.

Night time is the hardest for her. She sees him. Sometimes she sees Prim; sometimes it's Marvel, or Peeta. But Cato is always there, either in the background or the main focus. Little Prim begs to her over and over again to not kill her, she cries for her to spare her life. She tells her that she doesn't want to die.

Cain would give anything to trade places with the little girl. That sweet little girl, Cain didn't want to kill her, but she had too. She had too, she didn't have a choice. It's bad when Peeta makes an appearance as well. He jeers at her, tells her how worthless she is without Cato. And she agrees with him, that's what makes it the worse.

She goes crazy in her dreams when Cato speaks to her, because his voice is clear. Just like she remembered it, and it just reminds her that she'll never hear it again.

* * *

_These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase  
_

* * *

"You just go out, read the speech, accept their gifts, and then come right back. Okay Cain?" Enobaria asks the Victor. Brutus refused to come along on the Victor Tour with them, because he can't take the girl's constant misery anymore. And the first stop will be the worst. District Twelve.

Cain nods to Enobaria just seconds before the doors open, Cain barely hearing the Mayor of the District introducing her. Cain doesn't stand tall while she walks to the podium, she doesn't look over the population, she isn't arrogant, she looks down at her feet as she walks. And then she finally looks up, into the faces of Peeta Mellark and Primrose Everdeen's family.

On Peeta's side, she sees his father and mother, and two other boys who look almost exactly like Peeta. They look like they want to kill her. They must be his brothers. She swallows the lump in her throat as she remembers the visit from Peeta she had in her dreams, she's positive his brothers will be in her head as well from now on.

She looks over on Prim's side and feels her arms begin to shake with anxiety. Only one older girl stands there. Her hair braided in one braid and wearing a simple blue dress. Cain remembers Prim's interview, she mentioned her mother, how she admired her. Her mother must have died of grief.

* * *

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me_

* * *

After her speech Cain can't take it anymore. Once she's changed out of her banquet dress and changed into slacks and a t-shirt, she sneaks out. She gets out successfully without detention of the peacekeepers and takes off running through District Twelve. The past six months have taken a toll on her physique, but she manages to keep running. She can't take it anymore. Life. Living without him, without his love, without his support, without his comfort. She ends up running down the road through the poor part of the District that locals call the Seam, and doesn't see a tall, dark haired boy notice her sprint by.

She reaches the fence soon after and dives under it, not really caring if it's on or not. Death would be welcome. She runs through the woods outside of the District until her foot catches and she tumbles to the ground, head over heels, into the dirt.

And then she begins again, her mind giving her a picture of Cato, crouched down in front of her. He reaches out towards her and she hopes that she'll be able to feel him, but she can't. He disappears before she feels his touch, the touch she craves the most.

Her face is buried in her hands as she starts to sob again. Her body convulsing all over again, she doesn't even hear the boy come up near her.

"Who are you?" a rough voice snaps. Cain's head snaps up and her gaze locks with Gale Hawthorne's. Realization dawns in his eyes as his lips pull back in an almost snarl.

"You know who I am." Cain croaks out, the tone of her voice, how broken she sounds, sends Gale into a double take. This isn't the girl who killed Prim; this isn't the girl who stood tall in that chariot with her District partner for the games. It can't be, but it is.

* * *

_I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
But though you're still with me_

_I've been alone all along  
_

* * *

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't put this arrow through your neck." Gale sneered at the Victor who sat at his feet.

"I can't. Kill me, please." Cain begs the boy in front of her.

"Why?"

"I can't take life without him. I have nothing left. You don't know how hard it is to tell myself that he's gone. Because he's not! I see him, everyday! Everything reminds me of him, I died when he did!" Cain cries out again, every day she tries. Tries to tell herself that Cato isn't here anymore, that he won't come walking through the door, but she can't accept that. It's impossible.

"You killed Prim."

"JUST SHOOT ME ALREADY!" Cain screams at him. "_PLEASE! KILL ME!" _She fights off tears again. "I regret killing that girl every fucking day! But not more than I miss Cato please. Kill. Me. Now." Cain reaches her hand up to clutch the dog tag that she never takes off, bringing it to her lips. She kisses Cato's name while looking down at his name, branded into her skin.

And then the arrow goes through her heart, and all the pain is gone.

* * *

**Loved writing this. Hope you liked it. **


End file.
